Curling is the new cool

Armed with a plastic mixing bowl and a household broom, children (and big kids) around the world are making floors shine shouting and screaming with excitement when they achieve the perfect gleam.

Unfortunately for parents everywhere - and for any non-shatterproof furniture - this is not a new obsession with cleaning that will see youngsters performing smiling, willing, rotas to wash up and clean the house.

Instead, this a new interpretation with the world of curling, the unexpected hit of this year’s winter Olympics.

Despite few people having a clue what the rules of this lesser-known ice sport are (after all there is only one curling rink in England - though a second is being built at Barton Grange) it is being embraced as the sport is mimicked and discussed at length, propelling its participants to stardom and its quirks to parody.

So popular the topic, both the serious business of the sport itself plus the joys of the improvised version, it has been trending on Twitter and has even seen the launch of a Fantasy League.

It’s also had the side benefit of propelling Mr T of former A Team fame to legitimacy and a new audience via his passion for the sport of the moment.

Olympic curling

Meanwhile, elsewhere, even a famous actor has fallen foul of the power of ‘Curling Twitter.’ Kirstie Alley stepped out on to the ice to have a go for the first time and proclaimed curling as ‘boring.’

The reaction of the 'Twitterverse' was so loud and damning, I am sure Kirstie is now fully aware why curling is also known as ‘The roaring sport.’

So what’s the fascination?

It is after all a sport few of us have tried.

Olympic curling

We don’t live in a particularly icy country and if we step out on it it tends to be in skates (it uses a completely different temperature of ice - fascinating fact).

It might look easy but it’s highly technical and complex in its machinations - it can take 50 hours of competition to get Olympic gold - unlike the skiers’ handful of 45-second runs.

Maybe it’s the team uniforms of increasingly crazy trousers (or pants as they known, see Norway for a fine example.) that enthalls us.